davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
Alma record. (Alma, Mich.) 1878-1928, 1887-10-14

The report Of the commissioner of
education for the fiscal year has just
been completed. The report shows
that the condition and progress hither-
to characteristic of American education
have been in general maintained dur
ing the year. DC asional instances of
retrogession and reaction have been
more than balanced by healthy growth
of judicious improvements. a brief
account is given of the measures taken
in the interest Of education in Alaska.
There are fifteen government schools
in operation in that territory. To meet
the urgent needs Of the people the com
missioner re ommonds the establish
ment of schools at twenty-three other
points in the territory. An appropria-
ton of $4,000 is also asked for tho
purpose.
Alma record. (Alma, Mich.) 1878-1928, 1887-10-14

A statue of George Washington in
bronze arrived in Boston from England
the other day, and was at once sent to
Philadelphia, having been made for
that city. Erecting statue to a man
one hundred years after his heroic SER
vices were rendered. is characteristic
of Philadelphia's slowness.
Alma record. (Alma, Mich.) 1878-1928, 1887-10-14

1t is asserted by people who have
had the best opportunities for 'eeing
and knowing, that not one single
woman in all Utah is held by the Nor
mons by force, and that If all were told
to go out into the world tomorrow,
not one in 500 would willingly leave
husband and family.
Alma record. (Alma, Mich.) 1878-1928, 1887-10-14

il all the men in the country who carried a
brick In their hats would assemble somewhere
they might build a monume nt to somebody
Bsrlia gtos Free Press.
Alma record. (Alma, Mich.) 1878-1928, 1887-10-14

The front gate and the hammock,
The old bench in the grove,
Have had their day and must give way
To the corner near the stove.
Washington Critic.
Alma record. (Alma, Mich.) 1878-1928, 1887-10-14

I have named, but the fact IL that Of
ten more than twice this is made when
once good market Is established.
W. Il. BrOWn, IN Practical Farmer.
Alma record. (Alma, Mich.) 1878-1928, 1887-10-14

A farmer near Harrisburg. Penn
raised 32 melons this year, but didn't
make much out of them. This wa.
largely owing to the fact that he has
had to pay $3.50 in lawyers fees and
cost for shooting salt into the legs oI
boys who tried to steal his melons.
Alma record. (Alma, Mich.) 1878-1928, 1887-10-14
purpose.

Mrs. Woodwork, the "paroXysmal
evangelist of the West says that the
world will end just four years from the
first of the present month But before
that dread day arrives she says that
Colonel Ingersol, the prince of heretics,
will become the foremost soldier in the
army of Jesus Christ y There is no
doubt of this, because she has had a
vision in which che "beheld lngersoll
before a great multitude and heard him
exhortng men to fall in behind tho
banner of Christ, a. mortal man never
eXhorted before. Bob is the very
personiGcation of gallantry, and will
fin,l it very hard to disappoint a lady
who has had such soul-stirring vision.
Alma record. (Alma, Mich.) 1878-1928, 1887-10-14

Miss Kate Field is said to have been
the first person to denver lecture in
Alaska When she arrive at juneau
she was escorted through rain and mud
to the village, where the brass band
gathered in front of the best dance
house. where the lecture was delivered,
and serenaded the lecturer. She APP
peared upon the platform in a riding
habit. and delivered her address in
true Lady Gay Spanker style.
Alma record. (Alma, Mich.) 1878-1928, 1887-10-14

The wife of Professor A. Graham
Bell though perfectly deaf, loses little
of the table talk when she and her hus-
band are entertaining a company at
dinner Without uttering a sound the
famous inventor telegraphs with his lips
nearly everything that is said, and she
cleverly reads them as she would a
book
Alma record. (Alma, Mich.) 1878-1928, 1887-10-14

Gen. Fairchild ex Commandor-in-
Chief Of the g. 4. Il in his address at
the annual encampment recommended
that Mr.. Joseph W. preNel's offer to
transfer the Grant Cottage on Nj,
McGregor TO the Grand Army be re
ferred to the in coming Commander in
Chief and Council Of Administration.
with authority to a ccpt it if the details
of trusiceship and management can be
satisfactorily arranged. he also recon-
mended the encampment to select a
comrade to write a complete history OF
the Grand Army, and advise the
establishment of permanent national
Headquarters at some convenient spot
Alma record. (Alma, Mich.) 1878-1928, 1887-10-14

A. Bronson Alcott has kept a journal
since boyhood, and az he was born in
1897 and has known intimately nearly
every man OF distinction in New Eng
land from that time to the present, it
ought to be very interesting reading.
1t now fills co volumes of neatly written
manuscript which will be given TO the
world after his death. Mr.. Alcott is
still a helpless invalid, and spends the
most of his time on couch asleep or
looking over his books.
Alma record. (Alma, Mich.) 1878-1928, 1887-10-14

An American gentleman who has re-
rently travelled through Japan, says
that the japanese will in few years be
the greatest railroad builders in the
world. A. yet there are only SO miles
Of RAILROAD in Japan, but many new
roads are projected. The japanese are
good railroad patrons for even when
they have no business to transact they
will ride back and forth on the railroad
until they have spent their last cent.
And the heggars in the large towns
nearly always spend the money which
they get on railroad trip.
Alma record. (Alma, Mich.) 1878-1928, 1887-10-14

Ex-Vice President VIM. a Wheeler
left his property to missionary societies
and when his will was offered for pro
bate lawyers appeared representing Il
large number of relatives and gave
notice Of contest. The grounds are:
That this instrument in question is not
the testator's Will; that he was not
competent 10 make will at the date
it was executed; that one of the witness
es is a BENEFICIARY under il; that the
signature is rot Mr. Wheeler's, etc.
The weekly register. [volume] (Point Pleasant, Va. [W. Va.]) 1862-1909, 1887-04-20
A Kind Hearted Quartet.

There were four ladies once went fish.
ing. They selected very rainy day.
and they had all their waterproof cloai:s
and head and feet covering. They were
all by themselves when they took a boat
and vent to fish. It was in Maine. With
true feminine earnestness they started off
without anything to put the fish in. They
had an elegant time until they caught a
pickerel. When they caught the pickereI
they didn't know what to do with it. 1t
was alive and Topping. They had it in
the bottom of tie boat. They wondered
why it didn't lie quiet. at last happy
and benign thc'Ight struck one of them.
Poor thing It's getting all wet ly-
ing in the rair> y
And she enpped off her waterproof
and wrapped it up in it. Each of the
four caught pickerel, and each of the
four wrapped il up in her waterproof and
the rain wet them through TO the skin.
but they Kept their fish dry all the same.
San Francisco Chronicle.
The weekly register. [volume] (Point Pleasant, Va. [W. Va.]) 1862-1909, 1887-04-20
Tho DeptI, Of Imitat,ve perf,av.

Queerer stin than the caterpillars
which pretend to be leaves or flowers for
the sake of protection are those truly di-
abolical and peridiois Brazilian spiders
which, as Mr.. Bates observed, are bril-
hantly colored with crimson and purple,
but double themselves up at the base
buds, and thus deceive the insects upon
which they prey. There is something
hideously wicked and cruel IN this lowest
depth of initiative infamy a flower
bud is smelling SO innocent and child
like; an j to disguise oneself as such for
purposes of murder and ranine' argues
the final abyss of arachnoid perfidy. 1t
reminds one of that charming and ami
able young lady in Mr.. Robert Louis
Stevenson's .sDynamiter, who amused
herself in moments of temporary gayety
by blowing up inhabited houses, inmates
and all, out of pure ightness of heart
and girlish frivolity. An Indian nantis
or praying insect, little less wicked,
though no less cruel than the spiders,
deceiyes the flies who come to his arms
under the false pretense of being quiet
leaf, upon which they may light in safety
for rest and refreshment. Yet another
abandoned member of the same family,
relying boldly upon the resources of trop-
.icat mature, gets itself up as q. complete
orchid, the head and fangs being nodded
in the exact image of the beautiful bios
som, and the arms folding treacherously
around the unhappy insect which ven
lures to seek for honey in its deceptive
iaw.-Cornhill Magazine.
The weekly register. [volume] (Point Pleasant, Va. [W. Va.]) 1862-1909, 1887-04-20
nIere rhvsIcal I,nrrrssl,cnes..

The race is not to the swift nor fIlo
battle to the strong. The weakest haml
may touch off the cannon whose lall shall
oveItake the swiftest runner. miles away.
1t is the virtue of gunpowder, rs Carlyle
says. that it makes all men alike tell. =
There stll remain among some of our
troops those caps of imitation benrskin
which We're once worn to intimidate II
foe. The fierce headdress of the drum
major is the reducto I'D als,uylum, or
extreme instance, of this childish method,
which stil survives among the Chinese.
and may be seen in Japanese pictures.
Ii an old military text book the Portu-
guese soldiers were ordered to attack
their opponents with ferocious counte-
nances."
But civilization has set aside all this
merely physical impressiveneas and sub
situted invention. a monk, not a sol
der, invented gllnDow,ler. Savage
strength is powerless against the needs
gun and the unseen torpedo. This tloca
not annihilate the value OF physicaI
health and strength. bnt it readapts Their
use. The young man even in n military
school has his bodily health trained not
that he may grasp his opponent in his
mighty arms and throw him TO the earth,
as formerly. but that lie may have his
head clear, his nerves in equilibrium, his
action prompt.-T. W. II. IN llarpers 3
BaZar
The weekly register. [volume] (Point Pleasant, Va. [W. Va.]) 1862-1909, 1887-04-20
cannIbalts,n of Rats.

at South Kensington the Ioveliest sub
urb Of London, the inhabitants are silf-
fe'ing from an immense influx of rats,
and no Pied Piper of Hamlin can rid
them of the pests. It is in this pretty
spot that the annual exhibitions are held,
when, with an enormous attendance, the
consumi 'tion of yiands is on Gargan-
tuan scale. at such periods the rodents
VIII not look at trap but live on the fat
of the land. but when the exhibition is
closed and the edibles of all kinds have
been removed, they become reckless. and
rush into the traps as fast as they are set,
paying no attention to their situation
until they have devoured the bait.
When their hunger has endured some
time, they revert to cannibalisrn, falling
always upon the young end weak mem.
bers of the rat community, and destroy
ing them SO utterly that, Nature saws,
at the present time there cannot be
found single young rat in the building.
San Francisco Chronicle.
The weekly register. [volume] (Point Pleasant, Va. [W. Va.]) 1862-1909, 1887-04-20
NO. Is.
Ansuerlng rn.ine.s Lettrf..


Even in this business like age, every
thing Is done by system, and not eventhe
smallest inquiry by mail is supposed to
remain unanswered, therc IS now and
then found a business man who does not
fuItin the duties Of a correspondent. Such
a one was the head of a large agency in
one of our seaboard cities, who had. in
front of his desk, long row of pigeon
holes, all of them mafked ''Imanswered
letters, and all stuffed full.
Why don't you answer those letters?"
a visitor asked of him one day,
s.Wlat would be the uses'' he am
swered. .tWhy, they would only so and
write TO me AGAIN.
Another man, a lawyer. was found by
caller one. day sitting IN front of an open
gate, with his elbows on his knees and his
chin on his hands. watching a great hemp
of letters burning fercely In the CRATE.
'sWhy, thought your man said you
were very busy. said the caller.
I am, said the lawyer.
s.What are yon busy about?"
Answering my espondence!" said
the lawyer, as he pointed to The letters
burning in the grate.
1t Is worthy OF note that the agent who
feared that his correspondents would
write to him again if he answered their
letters lost his place, while the lasvycr
had means of earning an income other
than these attending to the business de
tails of his profession. There is no safer
rule that q business man can follow than
this: See that all Your letters are
promptly and politely answered by some
body IN Your eIalslay if you cannot do it
yourself. YOUTHS Companion.
The weekly register. [volume] (Point Pleasant, Va. [W. Va.]) 1862-1909, 1887-04-20
EXERCISE Foa The FAIR.
strengthening the Muscles of the Cheek.
Fashionable Isiyures,

Fashionable Figures.
Can you imagine woman seated on
her chair at home and polling one cheek
with one finger by the hour day after
day? Can you easily picture to yourself
another woman working her lower jaw
incessantly and most vigorously an hour
or two every day for a month? Yet this
is done by our sisters and our cousins and
our aunts all over town. The reason
they do this is that they are not satisfied
with their faces. This one has depres-
sion in her cheek, and that is what she is
poking with her finger. She expects so
to strengthen the muscles III her cheek as
to make it full and plump and round, as
it ought to be, and used to he in her
babyhood. The other one is working her
lower jaw in order to develop the lower
part of her face. which she thinks is not
round and curving enough; or, if she is
married, she wants her face to look as
well as the plumpest among her lady
friends. There is little book in current
use which gives the ladies the necessary
instructions for poking this part of the
face and working the other, and it is this
little book that is giving our women this
novel employment.
This manual for encouraging the vanity
of women also gives instruction in the art
of developing the arms and necks and
blsts of the sex, but what it proposes for
them to do is only, after all, what they
are doing and have been doing always for
their own improvement. A man exer-
cises for his hea1th-a woman for her
looks. The growth of fashionable life,
with the attendant increase of the use of
low neck dresses, has set many and many
hundreds of women who want to shine in
society to racking their brains and busy
ing themselves toward improving their
appearance. Many women who want to
wear low ball and dinner dresses find
they have bothersome bones in their
nec1s, which are quite useful in their
way, but have no right to expose them
selves Just where fair, smooth surface
is desired. To sink these out of sight
amid the fullness of fashionable neck or
chest is what is giving many pugilist
and fencing master and gymnasium
manager wealth and business Just now
The women are doing much, perhaps,
to make themselves healthy and pretty
than they ever did or had chance to do
in modern times before. Horseback rid
ing, rowing, swimming, walking, exercis-
ing IN gymnasiums, sparTing, playing
games that strengthen muscles and de-
velop forms, and studying hygiene-with
as little study and as much fun as posi-
be-are some of their devices. Why,
the young women are undergoing revo-
luton! Their mothers don't know what
to make of them-though candor COM
pels the admission that great many of
the mothers are paying as much attention
to the subject as any one-except that
they may rot all have the new science
down as finely as that lily of the stage
who IS described in the provincial papers
as taking cold bath every morning to
preserve her health, washing her face
with cold cream instead of water SO as to
avoid wrinkles, and walking like a post
man to keep herself muscular.-New
York Sun.
The weekly register. [volume] (Point Pleasant, Va. [W. Va.]) 1862-1909, 1887-04-20
Smiles as a sEean. OF Expression

In the first place. there is the presenta-
ton smile of society. You are presented
to lady, who not only bows to show
tat she puts herself at your feet, and
'ferhaps gives her hand to show that she
does not mean to pull hair or scratch q
still follow the doubtless correct evolu-
ton theory of ceremonials), but she
" smiles and smiles to show that her
mood is one OF sweet aIniability, and that
you are therefore, for the present, safe.
Then there is the pretty, pearly, rip
ping laugh, with which your ..ntlt
brown anecdote, which has been heard
already twice this evening, is received.
Here, certainly, there is no pent up cas-
code of emotion that seeks for an outlet.
Che sweet lady's laugh is partly for your
sake, that you may feel the soft thrill of
self applause; and partly for her own.
because she knows she laughs we'll She
pulls it exactly as if it were a stop in an
organ.
Then there is the bitter laugh of the
sad, sad young man, who wishes to inn
press upon your mind the hollowness
that all things have for him; and the
well managed smile of Jaques, the elder
cynic, who thinks thus to wither your
youthful aspirations and at the same
time to suggest .his own unfathomed
deeps of cruel disillusion. - Atlantic
Monthly Contributors Club.
The weekly register. [volume] (Point Pleasant, Va. [W. Va.]) 1862-1909, 1887-04-20
a cnriou. -e-,.-..lnent.

Mrs Annie Dean Chopper, l:alf sister of
the orce famous Julia Dean. died NJ
Gently IN Denver. Two weeks before l.e<
death she liai dream IN which she saw
her approaching e.,l, saw her body laid
in tile coffin, and the sccl.c impressed
itself SO vividly ulson her mind that shc
observed the dress in which she was
clothed, the manner in which her hair
WIS arranged, and even tile ornaments
ir her collar, All efforts ON the part of
l-r friends to laugh away this unpleasant
II emory Were uEavailing. She believed
that her hour WIS approaching. and at
the time she especially charged her
friends that when she died she wanted
to be clothed Just as she appeared TO her
self in the coffin. Her request was COM
piled with. and the corpse was dressed
for burial ana every detail arranged as
she had particularly requested, even To
the position OF the head.-Chicago Tri-
bune.
The weekly register. [volume] (Point Pleasant, Va. [W. Va.]) 1862-1909, 1887-04-20
Tho srnltltuaes OF london.

Yet how the multitudes thrive. and the
crowd of Londoners increase! Taken as
whole, London must be healthy place
notwithstanding the dirt and squalor of
the east end populace and the pestilen-
tial dcns which are their homes among
factories which send forth volumes of
black, odorous smoke, and pour their
filthy refuse into the turbid waters Of the
Thames, with its already sodden banks
of mud and putrefaction accumulated
during hundred ages. 1t appears mar
velous that in such a crowded mass of
human and material wretclledness, decay
and general uncleanliness, there should
ever be refreshing breath, sweet
scent, or spotless thing, and yet how
many here experience their sigh of utter
most relief and happiness, or inhale a
passing fragrance that seems the sweetest
of their ives-for ever to dwell in
mem'ry's dream. London Cor. San
Francisco Chronicle.
The weekly register. [volume] (Point Pleasant, Va. [W. Va.]) 1862-1909, 1887-04-20
The American - a. orienfa1-

The eastern fatalist not only submits to
misfortune without murmur. but faces
death with iron composure. He has Che
mind of Hamlet concerning it: IF it
be row, It's not to come. If it be not to
come, it viii be now; if it be not now.
yet it VIII come. The readiness is air.
The American, on the other hand, in
his eagerness to set the whole world
right. quarrels with inevitable disaster,
as with trivial wrongs. and Is too often
ready to call on God to explain to his
satisfaction the mysterious workings of
the universe. Even with the help of his
Christianity, his behavior is often that of
Petulant child compared with the grave
submission of the Asiatic to destiny.
Youths Companion.
The weekly register. [volume] (Point Pleasant, Va. [W. Va.]) 1862-1909, 1887-04-20
The Bison Gone Forever.

1t is sad thing TO say. but the great
American bison is practically gone for
ever. The Pacific railroad. the Shal1ls
rifle and mans Unsuitable desiructiveness
have done their work, and the noblcst
ruminant of them all has gone down be-
fore them. The lealen llail OF the Lreech-
loader has swept the millions Of Buffaloes
from the face of the earth before single
strong hand has been raised to stop the
merciless slaughter. To look back ulon
the buifalocs as they were few years
ago only adds to our regret for their
fate; but it may servo to point n moral
very strongly in the direction of our few
remaining elk, deer, antelope and moan.
tain sleep.-William 7. Holuaday in
New York Sun,
The weekly register. [volume] (Point Pleasant, Va. [W. Va.]) 1862-1909, 1887-04-20
Now Yorls,s pyspep.ia victfns.

Thousands of unfortunate New York
mcn-the victims of dyspepsia are al
most always men-talSe liver pills as
regularly as they take feed. They arc
such slaves to artificial aids to digestion
that they imagine they viii Gle il tlicy
miss one dose. Every year n long pro.
cession of men with ruined stonlaclls and
acidulous dispositions vvends its way out
of the city and goes up 10 the water
cures in The country. where they can live
on hard Graham bread and cold water
and make themselves decently miserable.
Some people might think that since there
is so much dyspepsia there n,I,st be an
other long procession of broken down
men rapidly moving to the cemeteries.
But it is not SO. Il is a ceTtain and well
authenticated fact that dyspeptics never
die-of dyspepsia. They Ike en- IN i.lorc
or less complete unllappiness, rs a kind
of scomge to Themselves, and, I1zlfortu-
nately, to others for The digestive sins
they have committed, until their disease
develops into some other maladv that
may prove fatal, or they die of old age.
Dyspepsia itself never kills anything hut
happiness. Nj, doubt noIsIc Of lis victims
have wished il tiid.-Bos.ol Budget.
The weekly register. [volume] (Point Pleasant, Va. [W. Va.]) 1862-1909, 1887-04-20
spIaers at Enc can,to1.

Washington spiders have discovered
that game is plentiful near the electric
lights which illuminate the public build
ings. In consequence their webs are so
thick and numerous that portions of the
architectural ornamentation are no longer
visible and when torn down by the wind.
or when they fall from decay, the refuse
gives dingy and dirty appearance to
everything it comes in contact with. Not
only this, but these adyenturers take pcs
session of the portion of the ceiling of any
room which receives the illumination.
Science.
The weekly register. [volume] (Point Pleasant, Va. [W. Va.]) 1862-1909, 1887-04-20
A pros,,erous Poonle.

On the island of st. George, Alaska,
where 20, 900 seals are annually taken,
100000 is divided among the natives
each season. a first class share last
season amounted to $525. When it is
taken into consideration that besides this
cash paid for services rendered by each
sealer every native family on the island
has comfortable home, with fuel, lights,
medical attendance and schooling free of
charge, it win not seem an exaggeration
to claim for these hyperboreas a state of
life which it would be hard If not inn
possible to improve With such ad-
vantages over his fellow Aleuts it is
hardly to be wondered at that the seal
islander should consider himself trile
better than his poorer cousins. Great is
the hutter in the social circles of Coma
laslla when dusky hero of the bloody
fields of st. George or st. Paul arrives on
one of the company's S steamers in search
of a wife. In affairs of this kind the
priest of the parish has great influence,
and it has been whispered that these
good men manage to hold back the
choicest articles in the way of marriage
able damsels until less desirable stock has
been foated, thus preserving healthy
tone to the market.-Cor. San Francisco
C'l,rODinIo